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Background / Motivation

For almost three decades, international development assistance for health has focused mainly on specific diseases or aspects of health care, such as HIV, TB, malaria, family planning, and immunization programs. These programs provide important and significant injections of funding, commodities, new technologies, and technical assistance, and their sharp focus enabled rapid gains in performance. However, they were largely implemented in situations with weak infrastructure and poor public management, undermining their chances of long-term success and even weakening the very health systems they were expected to support.

These vertical programs have all made impressive gains, They are reaching the limits of their effectiveness due to the systemic weaknesses within each of the six pillars of our health system; this presents the greatest barrier to continued progress. Therefore, building stronger and better functioning health systems that are locally owned and managed is imperative and will permit these remarkable gains to continue without bankrupting the economies that support them.

Strong health systems around the globe provide universal health coverage: all people can access health care when they need it without being impoverished by the costs. Services are distributed equitably so that people in even the most remote areas can reach them and services meet the needs of all residents, including women, youth, and minorities. A strong health system is embedded inextricably within the communities that it serves, and with them is able to learn, adapt, and adjust to changing circumstances, including crises, while continuing to ensure that all of the following six pillars work in concert: a) Governance structures b) Information c) Human resources d) Finances e) Pharmaceuticals f) The delivery of preventive and curative health services.

Problem Statement

One weak pillar in this very complex system could negatively affect all the others. For instance, if a health system has well-trained human resources, but constant stock-outs of medicines, it cannot deliver effective care. Likewise, if services are of a high quality, but clients cannot afford them, they will not receive them when in need. Also, if all services are free, but facilities are understaffed and providers are not skilled, people will continue to die from preventable causes. Finally, if the quality of care is good, but no good information system exists to mobilize communities to interact healthily with facilities and alert authorities to respond to disease outbreaks, the country, its neighbors, and the world are left vulnerable to deadly epidemics.

ANCCD – Community Health Vision and Objectives

Action Network Centre for Community Development, will seek to address the systemic issues that exist within the information system. We would work to fundamentally strengthen the health system, with a focus on improving the functions of the information within the community system in such a way that other HSS pillars that rely on it would efficiently and equitably deliver the life-saving health services that people, especially children, women, and poor and vulnerable populations, need.

We will achieve this by strategically positioning ANCCD to effectively interface between the two major stakeholders in grassroots development: primary service providers (government, policy makers, and implementers) and service consumers (citizens, communities). The aim would be to bridge the wide communication gap between the two ends; ensuring that governance and provision of services (supply) corresponds with the need and aspirations (demands) of the end beneficiaries of services—the grassroots.

Furthermore, we will partner with, and enhance capacities of existing community-based structures/apparatuses like the traditional institutions; Community based groups and other Non-state actors to diagnose, articulate and transmit health needs of citizens to government at all levels for effective and sustainable policy making. Would also seek to identify and address linkage problems that exist between Primary Health Care Centres and their host communities while advocating for better services and access at all levels of health care provision.

The use of ICT is crucial for effective information sharing and access. We believe that ICT will play a paramount role in delivering our core objectives and help build an improved health care delivery system that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable. Therefore we will promote the use of ICT among the primary health service providers and service consumers at all levels, starting from the grassroots.

ANCCD will not work in isolation nor seek to recreate the will; we would rather strengthen and build upon the gains of past interventions in this regards and seek to compliment the ongoing work of other partners.